


West of Everything

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Multi, Post-The Raven King, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, not necessarily shippy but not necessarily not shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 21:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14481234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: Henry laughs and the sound echoes off the truck at the far end of the lot, threatening to break the night to pieces. Blue smiles. “West of Everything,” Henry repeats. She can hear the capital letters in his voice. “West of Everything. Sounds like a band.”“The anthem for a merry bunch of misfits,” she replies.________________________Post The Raven King, during Sarchengsey's trip West. Short and sweet.





	West of Everything

________________________

“Does anyone know where we are?” Henry asks, casually leaning against the dirt-minted Pig. He fiddles with RoboBee, letting the mechanical insect crawl over his hands and back again and back again.

“You say ‘anyone,’” Blue comments, “as if I were not the only other person here.”

He shrugs lazily in the harsh gas station lights. His Madonna tour shirt is dirty in splotches where it meets the car.

Blue does not have any idea of where they are. Somewhere, she thinks, where it is perfectly legal for the mountains to kiss the sky greedily as the stars drips down from above. Somewhere where the dimly lit gas station is the only point light that doesn’t emanate from the heavens. It feels like Henrietta almost; wilder though, and less settled.

_ What a thing to think, _ she thinks suddenly.  _ That Henrietta should be tame. _

“West,” she says finally. She taps out a beat on the steering wheel.

“Of?”

“Everything.”

Henry laughs and the sound echoes off the truck at the far end of the lot, threatening to break the night to pieces. Blue smiles. “West of Everything,” Henry repeats. She can hear the capital letters in his voice. “West of Everything. Sounds like a band.”

“The anthem for a merry bunch of misfits,” she replies.

“I like you, child bride,” Henry says, pointing at her as Gansey does, then tilting his face to consider the stars.

Silence settles on them easily, slipping into worn grooves. They’ve sat like this before, her in the car and him leaning against it, the quiet shared between them. She doesn’t mind; he seems to like it this way.

Through the bug-stained window Gansey’s sleep-mussed head peers through the wire shelves, scanning and searching, politely curious, taking inventory of the gas station foods. He’ll come back with gummy bears and Chex Mix bags, she knows, hands overflowing with sodas and waters and the sunflower seeds Henry loves, Blue’s favorite tiny yogurts tucked away carefully in the pockets of his sweater. He looks up suddenly as if aware of her gaze and smiles, catching her eyes. His set are awake with a fervor she’s come to associate with Glendower and when he winks she wonders what, exactly, they’re about to stumble into.

Gansey comes out of the gas station with five plastic bags filled to the brim with maps and books and food. Henry takes one and sniffs at it, saying, “Mm, yes, book-flavored sunflower seeds. My absolute favorite. Thanks, Third.”

“Third?” Gansey says. He pulls a large crinkling bag of sunflower seeds and tosses them at Henry. They hit just above Madonna’s left eyebrow.

“You know, Richie, Richard, Rich. Third. You can’t be First, or Second, so.”

“Plus we’re older than you,” Blue adds.

“You too?” Gansey says, his face twisting with exaggerated pain. Blue laughs and kisses his cheek and he drops the look with a smile. “This bag’s yours,” he says, and dumps a huge bag onto Blue’s lap. A sharp corner of something presses into her knee.

“Come on, Henry,” Gansey says as he pushes his seat forward. Henry crawls gracefully into the backseat with his own bag, flicking a pair of shells into the pavement.

Blue examines the contents of her bag as Gansey settles into his seat and then resettles so Henry can have more legroom.

“Gansey,” she says, holding up a book almost accusingly. Then: “Gansey?”

He takes the books and maps from her and opens his mouth to speak. In the rearview, Henry silently holds up a brand new journal for her to look at, one eyebrow raised.

The book has a picture of a green blob, artistically rendered with two large eyes and long limbs. An alien. Blue and Henry stare at him.

Gansey’s excitement is a living thing in the night air.

“What do you two know,” he says, smile wide, eyes bright, “about Area 51?”

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I just feel like Gansey would like aliens
> 
> Thanks for reading! This is an ancient one, but I wanted to get it up here while I remembered :) there may be more incoming I'm trying to get myself to reread this summer
> 
> I'm on tumblr, [come say hi! :)](ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com)


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